On January 20, President Trump began his administration with an effort to boost American manufacturing, issuing a Presidential Memorandum, “America’s First Trade Policy,” detailing his intent to reverse America’s trade deficit and reinvigorate domestic production. However, the very next day, he issued an Executive Order, “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” that bans Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) initiatives, and in so doing threatens to undermine the industrial sector’s ongoing efforts to address worker shortages. This hard turn against inclusive recruiting in manufacturing is a reverse course on fifteen years of bipartisan work that fueled America’s current manufacturing recovery by expanding access to industrial careers in communities across the country.
Recruiting a Diverse Manufacturing Workforce Is Helping America Rebound
The American manufacturing sector hemorrhaged 5.7 million jobs between 2000 and 2010 in the wake of the financial crisis of the Great Recession and ill-fated trade policies, especially those regarding China. Since then, though, the country has experienced a steady recovery of manufacturing jobs (roughly 1.5 million jobs gained back), powered by bipartisan legislation starting manufacturing institutes under President Obama, a negotiated free trade agreement with Mexico and China during the first Trump administration, and the landmark bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act under President Biden.
The sector faces a significant challenge, however: a lack of available workers to power a manufacturing recovery. For example, a 2024 Deloitte analysis found that “the net need for new employees in manufacturing could be around 3.8 million between 2024 and 2033. And, around half of these open jobs (1.9 million) could remain unfilled if manufacturers are not able to address the skills gap and the applicant gap.” Industry leaders are keenly aware of this hiring gap, as illustrated by the National Association Manufacturers 2024 Q4 survey, which found that over half of manufacturing businesses are concerned about workforce challenges.
Manufacturers themselves realize that they won’t meet their goals if they don’t move to diversify a workforce that is nearly 70 percent white and 70 percent male, in a rapidly diversifying country. In the way one manufacturing association described it to The Century Foundation (TCF), the “FBI method” of recruitment (friends, brothers, and in-laws) was just no longer delivering enough workers into manufacturing. But, as TCF found in its Industry and Inclusion project, convincing nontraditional workers to join a workplace where most people on the line didn’t look like them isn’t easy. It requires the development of talent pipelines, and ongoing strategies that ensure that new hires are made to feel they belong and are free from sexual and racial harassment. That’s why affinity groups and mentorship between existing diverse skilled workers such as mechanics and trainees or new employees is so critical.
But these successful workforce recruitment and support strategies are in danger of being lumped into the administration’s critique of DEIA and targeted by the Executive Order’s requirement to “excise references to DEI and DEIA principles, under whatever name they may appear, from Federal acquisition, contracting, grants.” What some critics might call “social engineering” or examples of the “illegal preferences” targeted by the order are actually just good business decisions and effective human resources strategies.
Congress Has Long Funded Efforts to Recruit Workers from Underrepresented Communities
Congress directed agencies like the U.S. Departments of Commerce, Labor, and Energy in the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act to recruit underrepresented communities into manufacturing (and energy) jobs and develop strategies that would help those workers succeed in these industries—and that’s why DEIA initiatives were an integral part of the Good Jobs Challenge and Build Back Better Regional Challenge authorized under the American Rescue Plan Act as well. Programs funded under these federal investments have been instrumental in expanding pathways for nontraditional workers to enter manufacturing careers and bolster the workforce. Banning DEIA-based initiatives in federal programs disrupts this progress, choking off vital training pipelines that have been working to build a larger, thriving, more-inclusive manufacturing workforce.
Government agencies are responsible for implementing Trump’s Executive Order, and the full impact is yet to be known. So far, the signs are alarming. For example Rutgers University canceled a conference on how Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) can support participation in apprenticeship programs because the Rutgers program receives funding from the U.S. Department of Labor. Agencies have directed grantees to pause DEIA activities, and grantees have reported issues with being blocked from receiving reimbursement—especially on Monday, January 28, when the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued and then rescinded a memo pausing all federal financial assistance. OMB published a long list of programs under review for compliance with the president’s Executive Orders, including many federal funded job training and economic development programs.
 Worker Spotlight
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Tiara, a single mother of three in Detroit, was looking for a career change from the medical field to better support herself and her children. She took a chance on manufacturing and advanced mobility. Through the Build Back Better Regional Challenge funding, Tiara accessed training in the electric vehicle industry, and graduated from the ChargerHelp! Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE) Technician training program. She became one of the first few people in the country to pass the EVSE technician exam and become certified. She considers herself very fortunate to have accessed specialized training, supported by federal funding, as many people who seek alternative career paths are unable to do so due to training costs and a lack of supportive services. Instead of freezing federal training programs, she recommends bolstered data collection on career placement and outcomes after the training completion. Training providers can then have more robust assessment metrics on where their trainees land professionally and whether there is financial mobility/increased wage earnings as a result of the program.
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Looking Ahead
There’s still time for the Trump administration to take a more measured approach to its goals of supporting manufacturing, rather than simply stopping any existing training programs that employ equity metrics. Federally funded job training programs are already forbidden from discriminating against individuals based on race and sex and other characteristics. When it comes to manufacturing training programs, the issue is not that one racial group is given a preference for slots over another, but rather that employers simply do not have enough trained people to hire for slots, regardless of anyone’s background. It seems that there should be ways to craft targeted outreach to all economically disadvantaged communities regardless of race—meeting the needs of manufacturing to step up recruitment within its newly established policy parameters.
Manufacturing employment has rebounded to exceed pre-pandemic levels thanks to the bipartisan momentum to support U.S. manufacturing, and sustaining this momentum will require continued investment in workforce development and training programs. The workforce programs included in recent initiatives funded by Congress are critical to America’s economic development strategy, ensuring that companies have the skilled employees they need to compete in a globalized economy and workers have the pathways and resources to upskill and reskill into high-demand careers. Applying DEIA bans to these projects will derail progress on the creation of a deep, diverse, and capable talent pool needed by the nation’s manufacturing sector. Stopping them altogether over an essentially political issue is sure to mystify employers and weaken the nation’s competitiveness.
Tags: donald trump, U.S. manufacturing, DEI, DEIA
Trump’s DEIA Ban Threatens to Undermine U.S. Manufacturing and Competitiveness
On January 20, President Trump began his administration with an effort to boost American manufacturing, issuing a Presidential Memorandum, “America’s First Trade Policy,” detailing his intent to reverse America’s trade deficit and reinvigorate domestic production. However, the very next day, he issued an Executive Order, “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” that bans Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) initiatives, and in so doing threatens to undermine the industrial sector’s ongoing efforts to address worker shortages. This hard turn against inclusive recruiting in manufacturing is a reverse course on fifteen years of bipartisan work that fueled America’s current manufacturing recovery by expanding access to industrial careers in communities across the country.
Recruiting a Diverse Manufacturing Workforce Is Helping America Rebound
The American manufacturing sector hemorrhaged 5.7 million jobs between 2000 and 2010 in the wake of the financial crisis of the Great Recession and ill-fated trade policies, especially those regarding China. Since then, though, the country has experienced a steady recovery of manufacturing jobs (roughly 1.5 million jobs gained back), powered by bipartisan legislation starting manufacturing institutes under President Obama, a negotiated free trade agreement with Mexico and China during the first Trump administration, and the landmark bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act under President Biden.
The sector faces a significant challenge, however: a lack of available workers to power a manufacturing recovery. For example, a 2024 Deloitte analysis found that “the net need for new employees in manufacturing could be around 3.8 million between 2024 and 2033. And, around half of these open jobs (1.9 million) could remain unfilled if manufacturers are not able to address the skills gap and the applicant gap.” Industry leaders are keenly aware of this hiring gap, as illustrated by the National Association Manufacturers 2024 Q4 survey, which found that over half of manufacturing businesses are concerned about workforce challenges.
Manufacturers themselves realize that they won’t meet their goals if they don’t move to diversify a workforce that is nearly 70 percent white and 70 percent male, in a rapidly diversifying country. In the way one manufacturing association described it to The Century Foundation (TCF), the “FBI method” of recruitment (friends, brothers, and in-laws) was just no longer delivering enough workers into manufacturing. But, as TCF found in its Industry and Inclusion project, convincing nontraditional workers to join a workplace where most people on the line didn’t look like them isn’t easy. It requires the development of talent pipelines, and ongoing strategies that ensure that new hires are made to feel they belong and are free from sexual and racial harassment. That’s why affinity groups and mentorship between existing diverse skilled workers such as mechanics and trainees or new employees is so critical.
But these successful workforce recruitment and support strategies are in danger of being lumped into the administration’s critique of DEIA and targeted by the Executive Order’s requirement to “excise references to DEI and DEIA principles, under whatever name they may appear, from Federal acquisition, contracting, grants.” What some critics might call “social engineering” or examples of the “illegal preferences” targeted by the order are actually just good business decisions and effective human resources strategies.
Congress Has Long Funded Efforts to Recruit Workers from Underrepresented Communities
Congress directed agencies like the U.S. Departments of Commerce, Labor, and Energy in the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act to recruit underrepresented communities into manufacturing (and energy) jobs and develop strategies that would help those workers succeed in these industries—and that’s why DEIA initiatives were an integral part of the Good Jobs Challenge and Build Back Better Regional Challenge authorized under the American Rescue Plan Act as well. Programs funded under these federal investments have been instrumental in expanding pathways for nontraditional workers to enter manufacturing careers and bolster the workforce. Banning DEIA-based initiatives in federal programs disrupts this progress, choking off vital training pipelines that have been working to build a larger, thriving, more-inclusive manufacturing workforce.
Government agencies are responsible for implementing Trump’s Executive Order, and the full impact is yet to be known. So far, the signs are alarming. For example Rutgers University canceled a conference on how Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) can support participation in apprenticeship programs because the Rutgers program receives funding from the U.S. Department of Labor. Agencies have directed grantees to pause DEIA activities, and grantees have reported issues with being blocked from receiving reimbursement—especially on Monday, January 28, when the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued and then rescinded a memo pausing all federal financial assistance. OMB published a long list of programs under review for compliance with the president’s Executive Orders, including many federal funded job training and economic development programs.
Tiara, a single mother of three in Detroit, was looking for a career change from the medical field to better support herself and her children. She took a chance on manufacturing and advanced mobility. Through the Build Back Better Regional Challenge funding, Tiara accessed training in the electric vehicle industry, and graduated from the ChargerHelp! Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE) Technician training program. She became one of the first few people in the country to pass the EVSE technician exam and become certified. She considers herself very fortunate to have accessed specialized training, supported by federal funding, as many people who seek alternative career paths are unable to do so due to training costs and a lack of supportive services. Instead of freezing federal training programs, she recommends bolstered data collection on career placement and outcomes after the training completion. Training providers can then have more robust assessment metrics on where their trainees land professionally and whether there is financial mobility/increased wage earnings as a result of the program.
Looking Ahead
There’s still time for the Trump administration to take a more measured approach to its goals of supporting manufacturing, rather than simply stopping any existing training programs that employ equity metrics. Federally funded job training programs are already forbidden from discriminating against individuals based on race and sex and other characteristics. When it comes to manufacturing training programs, the issue is not that one racial group is given a preference for slots over another, but rather that employers simply do not have enough trained people to hire for slots, regardless of anyone’s background. It seems that there should be ways to craft targeted outreach to all economically disadvantaged communities regardless of race—meeting the needs of manufacturing to step up recruitment within its newly established policy parameters.
Manufacturing employment has rebounded to exceed pre-pandemic levels thanks to the bipartisan momentum to support U.S. manufacturing, and sustaining this momentum will require continued investment in workforce development and training programs. The workforce programs included in recent initiatives funded by Congress are critical to America’s economic development strategy, ensuring that companies have the skilled employees they need to compete in a globalized economy and workers have the pathways and resources to upskill and reskill into high-demand careers. Applying DEIA bans to these projects will derail progress on the creation of a deep, diverse, and capable talent pool needed by the nation’s manufacturing sector. Stopping them altogether over an essentially political issue is sure to mystify employers and weaken the nation’s competitiveness.
Tags: donald trump, U.S. manufacturing, DEI, DEIA